


Well, You Can Do It Without Me

by PAPERSK1N



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Archery, Eventual Relationships, Fighting for Survival, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hunting Animals, Lies, M/M, Mavin, Mystery, Past Relationship(s), Post-Apocalypse, Raychael brOTP, Raywood, Romance, Slow Burn, Stabbing, Survival, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse, lil angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:10:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8296997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PAPERSK1N/pseuds/PAPERSK1N
Summary: Zombie Apocalypse AU!!!    Ray hated the term ‘Apocalypse’ to describe the hell they lived. In his eyes, ‘Apocalypse’ was much too kind a description. ‘Apocalypse’ meant the world was over. In real life- they just had to keep on surviving until they couldn’t anymore, and the world would keep on spinning until it died- with or without him Ray's life for the past two years has been more or less a constant loop of "not-dying". He and Michael are best friends, practically brothers and over the last year or so have had each other's back through thick and thin. Nothing can change that- right?Ray meets two strangers in the woods, setting up an unforeseeable, unchangeable series of events. Lies are told and truth comes to light, and somewhere, in the middle one couple will find each other and whilst the other makes an unbreakable connection. Ray's sort of ready for it all just to be over.Ryan convinces him otherwise.Completed!





	1. April 14th

**Author's Note:**

> My new apocalypse fic! Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Updates: Sundays!

April 14th

 

 

 

As the sun broke over the horizon, Ray gathered his tools. His old backpack, still trusty and reliable after two years of service was stuffed with as much as he needed to survive in the event of an emergency- a few tins of food, water bottle, a torch, extra ammo for his pistol ( _that_ was tucked in his waistband 24/7, obviously) and most importantly- his arrows.

His gun was remarkably helpful, but running around and head-shooting zombies left right and centre was much more Michael’s style, following a lifetime of watching over the top action movies and an extensive _Walking Dead_ graphic novel collection. Ray’s method of combat was a little more primitive, but certainly just as (if not more so) effective.

Archery had been a love of his even before the outbreak. Archery, Video Games, Pizza Rolls- he had been a man of simple tastes. It just so happened that only one of his three main hobbies were particularly useful in the midst of a real life zombie ‘ _Apocalypse_.’

Ray hated the term ‘ _Apocalypse’_ to describe the hell they lived. In his eyes, ‘ _Apocalypse’_ was much too kind a description. ‘ _Apocalypse’_ meant the world was over. In real life- they just had to keep on surviving until they couldn’t anymore, and the world would keep on spinning until it died- with or without him.

“I’m headed out.” Ray lifted his bow and slung his quiver over his shoulder as he stood in the open doorway of the tiny wooden cabin they had been hiding out in for the past month or so. It was conveniently isolated, too far for many infected to crawl their way to in the middle of a forest and perfectly camouflaged by the trees.

And better than that- the woods meant animals. For Ray and Michael, animals meant _game._

“Be safe.” Michael said, dragging his knife up and down the leg of the wooden table absentmindedly. “Don’t forget-”

“Avoid anything with a black tongue, head back if you hear anything suspicious. Don’t worry _mom_ , I’m only making sure we have food to eat.” Ray laughed, zipping up his hoodie. The spring was setting in, but there was still a light chill in the Austin air.

Hunting was a new found hobby of his. It helped his enjoyment level that he had to do it to actually eat and survive, but the archery element kept it somewhat bearable. And then- there was always that satisfying feeling of aiming an arrow at a sprinting animal and still being able to nail it directly in the eye.

And yeah, five times out of ten he’d approach his capture and have to leave it rotting. The dreaded black tongue was hard to spot from far away, but once you got close enough it was blindingly obvious. Black tongue was the worst sign of infection. The ‘zombies’, whatever the hell _they_ were didn’t feed off brains like in the movies. Anything with blood and a pulse was game, and animals who had been bitten- or even more sinister- had contracted the infection by chewing at an un-dead’s corpse were no good unless you were planning on turning yourself.

It was a quiet day, as Ray licked his finger and held it to the air. And east wind- never a good sign in his two years of experience.

Still, after half an hour and three infected squirrels- Ray spotted his golden snitch. A glorious deer, four-foot-high and fat around the calves, healthy as ever sprung into his eye-line. Ray turned, ridged and his arrow flew through the air and directly into the deer’s skull within seconds. Smiling, he raced over to secure his prize. Michael would be overjoyed- this deer could feed them for weeks _and_ make them jerky that could last for months if food got sparse.

Just as Ray approached his catch, a body hopped down from the trees, knife in hand. On instinct alone, Ray drew another bow and aimed it at the creature, not even relaxing when he realised it wasn’t an infected. It was a man- healthy and lithe- with his hands in the air defensively, knife gripped loosely in his right hand.

“Woah! Easy mate!”

The British thing was interesting, but that was where it began and ended being funny.

“Back off.” Ray’s bow was taut. The man’s Adams apple bobbed nervously in his throat. “That’s my catch.” Ray nodded at the deer, and the British man’s eyes flicked between it and him briefly.

“Well- er- you see, actually- mate, uh.” He stuttered. “If you could put that down- we could talk this out. Maybe make a deal?”

Ray hesitated, but slowly, he lowered his bow. He was pretty ruthless, but even he drew the line at killing other humans in cold blood. He’d seen Michael do it and suffer for months- and he didn’t need the disability of guilt crippling his chances at survival.

“My arrow.” He pointed at the deer’s skull, marching over.

“Yeah! But I’ve been watching the deer for an hour mate, waiting for it to get over here so I could get it. Finders keepers, right?”

“But I shot it!” Ray insisted with a frown.

“Yeah- but I _saw_ it first.” The man grinned, oblivious to Ray’s agitation. “Oh, and it’s Gavin by the way.” He extended a hand. Ray glared at him.

“I didn’t ask.” He ignored the handshake, crouching beside the carcass to yank his arrow out of the deer’s skull. “Ray.” He added, after a long pause.

Gavin didn’t seem particularly put off by Ray’s stand-offish disposition. Instead, he grinned, and twirled his knife around casually in his hands. “Nice to meet you, Ray. Now- back to the deer matter, uh-”

“Nice shot.”

Ray spun like a dancer, the arrow he’d just yanked fresh from the deer’s head tucked against the string of his bow within seconds. The bright blood dripped across his fingers warmly, but he didn’t waver.

The man in front of him clearly wasn’t one of the infected either, but in Ray’s experience, fellow survivors could be just as dangerous. He was surrounded by two now, so, protectively, he spread his bow a little wider as the man approached slowly- an unreadable smirk on his face.

“What?” The man held his hands to his head in surrender. “Can’t take a compliment?”

Ray blushed. “Uh… thanks, I guess. Who the fuck are you?”

“Oh, he’s with me,” Gavin smiled, stepping around Ray so he was beside the other man, who then bumped playfully with his hip, earning himself a cold blue glare. “Sorry Rye. I think Ray here got it first.”

“Ray.” Ryan smiled, and Ray watched as his tongue probed the inside of his cheek. It was as if he was trying out the taste- _Ray_. Trying it on for size to see if it fit correctly. “I’m Ryan.” He said after a long pause, extending a hand. Ray relaxed his bow and re-sheathed his arrow before hesitantly reaching out to shake Ryan’s hand.

The whole situation was awkward enough when Ray realise he’d reached out with the hand dripping with deer’s blood. He cringed, pulling out of the handshake far too quickly to wipe his hand on his jacket. Thankfully, Ryan only smiled.

“I’m guessing you know how to gut that thing- Katniss?” he asked teasingly. Ray glared.

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing,” Ryan shrugged. “Just, a deer this size is wasted if you don’t know how to use every part of it.”

Ray frowned thoughtfully. To be fair to Ryan, Michael had severely fucked up last time they tried to gut a deer this size. Ray lost a coat right in the neck of winter because he couldn’t get the stench of rotten guts out of it.

“Alright,” he relented. “But we take the deer back to my buddy Michael- together. Any funny business, I shoot you both.”

“Perfect.” Ryan smiled, leaning down to haul the deer over his shoulder. Ray watched with wide eyes when Ryan picked the animal up as if it weighed nothing at all. “No funny business, right Gav?”

Gavin nodded, a playful grin spreading across his lips. “Right Rye.” He nodded.

Ray rolled his eyes, and turned his back on the two. They were fucking irritating so far, and that Ryan guy was much too snarky for his own good. However, if they really knew as much about deer as they were leading on, he and Michael could be eating well for a week or two.

It had nothing to do with how blue Ryan’s eyes looked in the mid-day spring sunshine.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They arrived back to the cabin in twenty minutes, Ray knocking three times and then, after a pause, another two so Michael would know it was him. However, his partner had his shotgun cocked within a minute once he saw the looming figures of Ryan and Gavin behind.

Ryan wasn’t fazed, striding confidently into the house and throwing the deer down onto the large wooden table. Gavin however, was completely frozen in fear.

“It’s okay Michael, they’re with me.” Ray said. Michael didn’t lower his gun, and shifted his glare from Gavin to Ryan.

“For-I…” he trailed off, and the gun shook slightly in his hand. “For _what_ exactly?”

“Your buddy here had a little run in with my pal, Gavin.” Ryan explained, stepping forwards slowly. “I found the two of them squabbling over a deer but Ray got it first.”

“So why the fuck are you here?” Michael asked, cocking the gun again. Ryan rolled his eyes.

“Slow down Rambo. Your buddy didn’t know how to gut the thing so I offered to help you out- for a portion of the game, of course.”

Michael lowered the gun but did not let it go, instead using it to lean on against the floor. He looked to Ray, who shrugged sheepishly. In honesty, he didn’t have anything to say. Michael was a pretty distrusting person in general, and he knew from the second he set off with Gavin and Ryan by his side it could only go badly.

Ryan didn’t seem bothered at all, and set to work straight away with a knife he had in his pocket. Gavin was still stood by the door, staring at Michael in the same way the deer had stared at Ray whilst his arrow sailed through its forehead.

Michael himself had noticed too, right from the moment the three had walked in. However, Ray had watched as Michael avoided Gavin’s eye and focused his attention on the subsequent drilling of Ryan whilst the other calmly gutted the deer, whistling and humming as he did. Ryan had no qualms with answering any of Michael’s questions, but Ray hadn’t paid any attention at all. Instead, he was mesmerised by Ryan’s work. He gutted the deer like a chef with a lamb, carefully laying out each and every edible organ into the metal bowls Michael had begrudgingly provided, before disposing of the waste into an old busted bag and then, setting to work on making tender cuts of the meat.

“I can promise you, Michael,” Ryan said, as he cut part of the hind quarter into thin slices. “We’re only here to help. No funny business.” He looked up as he said the last part, and Ray felt his cheeks heat up when he realised Ryan’s gaze and soft smile was aimed directly at him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Once the deer was completely cleaned and separated, Ryan roasted the meat over the open fire under Michael’s careful supervision, and the four ate together in silence, cross legged by the fire.

“This is great, Rye.” Gavin said quietly, but his eyes were trained on the shreds of meat in Michael’s mouth the whole time. “Honestly… top.”

“It’s good.” Ray agreed, licking grease off his fingers. Ryan let out a dark chuckle. “It better be. I’ve been hunting and cooking my own food since I was old enough to hold a gun.”

“How old was that?” Michael glared. “Six?”

“Seven.” Ryan responded calmly. “My dad was a hunter, so I had to learn. My mother was an excellent cook- I had to learn.”

“What, they were fucking training you for an impending apocalypse that long ago? Smart thinking.”

Ray laughed at Ryan’s expression. His eyes flicked up to Michael briefly, mouth pressed scrunched into a thoughtful line and his eyebrows furrowed. Still, he looked nothing but light-hearted and it unsettled Michael immediately and obviously, as he squirmed where he sat.

“They were… unconventional. Argued all the time. Divorced when I was a kid, dad died not long after that.”

The circle fell silent.

“Oh.” Michael eventually said. “Sorry.”

Ryan chewed loudly. “It was a long time ago.” He shrugged.

“You don’t mind talking about anything, do you Rye?” Gavin asked. It was as talkative as he had been all evening, and Ray did not miss the way Michael’s eyes darted towards the fire, for something else to focus on. “Open book.”

“That’s me.” Ryan gave him a warm, unnerving smile. “Open book.”

Ray felt uneasy when he watched Ryan’s teeth, sharp and strong, ripping through the deer’s meat. It was cooked excellently and slipped like butter down Ray’s throat, but Ryan’s mouth ripped it to shreds like Duck.

“Speaking of which.” He wiped his hands on his pants. “Gav and I were talking earlier whilst cooking and, uh, we thought that maybe rather than us lugging our share of the meat back to our van…we should all just stick together. Safety in numbers, and all.”

Before Ray could even consider the information presented, Michael’s eyes narrowed. “No.” he snapped. “Absolutely no way. Ray and I stick together and we go it alone. End of discussion.”

“Michael- wait-”

“No! Ray, are you fucking serious?” He shouted. “We don’t even know…” he paused, looking to Ryan, but then, for a guilty second over at Gavin’s hurt expression before tearing his eyes away and focusing back on Ryan with a narrowed glare. “We don’t know these guys. No way.” He repeated, quieter.

“Michael… they seem alright.” Ray looked at Ryan, and then Gavin, who were smiling. “They’re good hunters- Gavin’s great with a knife!” Gavin nodded eagerly, as if he was so desperate to impress Michael, despite his mysterious hostility. Ray ignored them both. “And Ryan knows how to hunt and gut like a fuckign professional. We could double our game.” He shrugged. Ryan had been nodding along as he spoke, staring at Michael in anticipation of his answer. However, out of the corner of his eye, Ray had seen Ryan glance over at him every other second, just for a moment.

“Safety in numbers.” He parroted Ryan’s words. “It’ll be fine.”

 

 


	2. April 20th - April 22nd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray and Michael take up Gavin and Ryan's offer to travel with them. The four of them do some bonding.

April 20 th

 

 

“How long have you two been living in this thing?” Ray asked, staring at the beaten old Volkswagen van, navy blue and covered in dust along the side of the road. Ryan shrugged with a smile as Gavin bounded inside, tossing the cooler of meat into the back before climbing in himself.

“About six months. It’s not that bad, we’ve got a mattress in the back to sleep on and shelves along the back to keep our shit. It’s pretty convenient, actually.” They approached the van, Michael lagging behind with a frown on his face as Ryan opened the passenger door and ushered for Ray to hop in. Ray got in first, Michael beside him as Ryan walked around to the driver’s side.

“How the fuck do you even fuel this thing?” Michael asked.

“Solar panels on the roof.” Ryan tapped the ceiling. “ _Those_ were a bitch to find, but this thing’s got a hybrid engine. Half electric, half fuel.”

“We cipher gas we find in abandoned cars for most of it.” Gavin added, from the back. Ray looked around at the well organised set up, labelled objects stacked on the shelves that he could easily identify as rat poison, bandages, and vials of antiseptic fluids. Gavin was sat casually sprawled on the mattress, leafing through a book. “We’ve been travelling it for a few months now, it’s done us good.”

“Wait, but where did you _find_ it?” Michael asked. Ryan started the engine and the van hummed to life.

“It was mine.” He laughed. “Came in pretty damn handy, I think.”

“You’ve got that right.” Ray watched out the front window as the van slowly rolled through the deserted roads. How long _had_ it been since he was in car, or any vehicle for that matter? Too long, because the leisurely pace of twenty-five miles per hour that they were sailing at felt like speeding through New York in a Ferrari.

“Gav and I’s plan was to head North, if that’s alright with you.” Ryan said, indicating as they turned the corner despite the fact there wasn’t a single soul around. “Mainly because down here the heat will be unbearable and come winter… well, Zombies don’t fare to well in the snow so it’ll come in handy, even if it is a little chilly.”

“That’s what we were going to do anyway, just… a lot slower.” Ray admitted. It shocked him, how insane it felt to be in the front seat of a vehicle as it drove down the road. The van coughed and spluttered as it went and Ryan stalled the engine on more than a few occasions, but Ray was completely enchanted. Automatic travel. Boy had it been a _while_.

“Perfect.” Ryan smiled, adjusting his mirror. He glanced at the dashboard. “We’ve got just about enough fuel to make it to the airport.”

“Airport?” Michael asked. Ryan nodded. “Why the fuck are we heading there?”

 “Ryan’s a qualified airline pilot.” Gavin piped up. “We’re pretty sure there’s still a few small cargo planes in the O’Hare International after the failed rescue attempts during the start of the outbreak with more than enough fuel to take us up North.”

“That sounds fucking insane.” Michael huffed, crossing his arms.

“Damn sight quicker than driving.” Gavin shrugged.

“Yeah- it’s either that or we keep on driving until we run out of fuel, and die on the side of the road from either starvation or lack of protection.” Ryan said flippantly. “We were thinking of flying to New York or maybe even further, like Canada. Plan was to pitch camp up in a high rise for the rest of the year. Zombies… not so good at stairs, so I hear.”

“I still think it sounds fucking stupid.” Michael said, turning to look at Ray, who was sat silently beside him. “What do you think, Ray? It’s not too late to get this psycho to drop us off at the side of the road and head back to our cabin.”

“I resent your choice of adjective.” Ryan muttered. Michael ignored him.

“Seriously.” He said. “Do you want to do this?”

Ray swallowed thickly around nothing in his throat. “Yeah.” He nodded, catching Ryan’s eyes in the rear view mirror. “I think it sounds like a great plan.”

 

 

 

April 22 nd

 

Ray had been reluctant to leave Michael alone at first, but they’d been driving with Ryan and Gavin for two days and most of the deer meat was done for. There was jerky, marinating in jars above Gavin and Ryan’s heads as they slept, but that wouldn’t be ready for weeks. So, reluctantly, Ray gathered up his bow and promised Michael that he would come back alive and with a pack stuffed with game.

Ryan had politely offered to go with him, leaving Gavin wide eyed and stiff in the back of the van, anxiously watching their figures retreating into a nearby wood.

Ryan walked silently and Ray followed, but it wasn’t awkward. There was something about Ryan and the way he could fill the silence with a whistle or a few steps that put Ray at a sudden ease, even with his bow drawn tightly in his lap as the two scoured the woods for game side by side.

“There’s a pretty fat looking squirrel up in that tree on the left, but it’s too far for me to hit with a knife. Think you can get it, Katniss?”

Ray wanted to scoff. He wanted to roll his eyes and mutter _please_ , before sending the bow sailing through the air with his eyes closed and straight into the squirrels panicked gaze. However, the smoothness of Ryan’s tone and the dark chuckle he gave after he spoke made him too nervous to speak.

Ray stooped down to the ground briefly, before picking up a handful of leaves and dirt. He held them up to the sun, before sprinkling them in the air with an intense study.

“What’s that about?” Ryan asked quietly, half looking at Ray and half watching the squirrel, tending to itself up in the tree.

“Oh- uh, it’s to check the winds direction. So I know how my bow’s gonna fly.”

“Smart.” Ryan nodded, watching as Ray took stance and aimed his bow into the tree. It was an easy shot for him, but Ryan’s keen interest and watchful gaze made him feel uneasy, so he found himself taking longer to concentrate and aim than usual, before releasing the arrow with a _woosh_ and sending it straight through the squirrels gleaming eye.

“Wow.” Ryan said, as the squirrel fell, dead, to the ground. They started off walking towards it, Ray blushing silently at the praise. “Seriously.” Ryan raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Right in the eye like that… is that just for show, or…?”

“It’s to preserve every part of the meat.” Ray explained as they approached the poor wretched rodent, and he bent down to pull the arrow out. Ryan gathered the squirrel, studying its mouth and tongue intently before stuffing it into a small knapsack. “Clearly you never actually watched _The Hunger Games._ ”

“You’re pretty impressive with that thing.” Ryan said with a laugh.  “How’d you get so good?”

Ray’s bow was already drawn again, aimed at another squirrel, gathering in the dirt at the bottom of another tree. “Practice.” He answered, sending the arrow flying through the air once again.

After the first two squirrels, the trail ran dry for a while. Ray didn’t mind, because Ryan had good stories to tell about the woods and his and Gavin’s run ins with infected over the past few months. They’d only been travelling together for half the year, when Ryan found Gavin sprinting around the forest with an infected rat chasing him.

He stopped in the middle of the thrilling tale, drawing his arm back and sending one of his small throwing knives into the dirt. Ray watched as it embedded itself into the skull of what looked like a possum, clean between the eyes.

“Wow.” It was his turn to be impressed. “How’d you get so good with a knife?”

They walked over, and Ryan gathered up his prey. “Practice.” He said with a teasing grin. “No, in all seriousness- you can’t laugh when I tell you this.”

 “Scouts honour.” Ray held three fingers briefly in the air, and smirked.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Something tells me you were never a boy scout.” He hummed.

Ray lowered his hand. “Something might be right.”

Ryan smiled again, wiping the blood from his knife on a small rag in his left pocket, before stuffing the possum into the game bag with both squirrels for company.

“I grew up in the circus.” He straightened. Ray scoffed. “Come on!” Ryan whined. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”

Ray’s grin only stretched. “I’m sorry!” he laughed. “Just… what the fuck man?! You’re so _random_!”

“It’s the truth!” Ryan insisted. “Scout’s honour!”

“ _You_ were a scout? Seriously?” Ray raised an eyebrow. Ryan rolled his eyes.

“For a while, yes. Then I got food poisoning on a camping trip and never went back, but that’s beside the point.”

“So you were a boy scout- whilst also being a circus kid? What gives? I thought your dad was a hunter?”

Ryan scrunched his nose. “Well, things didn’t work exactly in that order.” He said. “The boy scout thing was to appease my dad and keep me out of the house. After he died, my mother remarried. My step-dad just so happened to be an animal trainer.”

“What? Like lions and elephants and shit?”

“Well, it _was_ the eighties, but we were hardly exotic. We had one very un-ferocious lion that he took in from another, very cruel circus and had looked after since she was a cub and then mostly a bunch of small animals. Rodents and dogs and birds, that kind of thing.” He said. “It was fun, travelling so much and seeing different places.”

“Sounds cool.” Ray nodded, still scanning the surrounding area for any more rogue animals. “Hey, I think we’re done here. Wanna head back to the van?” he asked. Ryan smiled.

“Sure. Hopefully Michael and Gavin haven’t scratched each other’s eyes out yet.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

As Ray approached the van with Ryan by his side, he frowned. Michael and Gavin were sat together in the front seat, Gavin laid casually against the driver’s side window with a soft, meaningful grin on his face. Michael was beside him in the middle seat, hands wringing in his side as he looked down from Gavin, smiling and talking quietly.

However, by chance he looked up when Ray and Ryan came forwards and stiffened completely, Gavin sitting straight up beside him like a deer in headlights.

“Hey, you guys good?” Ryan asked, breaking the awkward silence as he clambered into the back to sort through their game. Ray slipped into the front-seat beside a guilty looking Michael and watched the pair cautiously, noting how they both scooted quickly away from each other as soon as Ray and Ryan were in watching distance.

“Yep.” Gavin squeaked. “Just… chatting.”

“Getting to know each other.” added Michael, tone at least slightly more level. Ray caught Ryan frown from the back at them both, before he turned back to his work. He wasn’t buying it either.

The van fell into silence again, Ray leaning against the passenger window with his legs curled up underneath him. Gavin played with the tuner of the radio, turning through static channel after static channel until Michael sighed loudly and he snatched his hand back from it like the tuner was red hot.

“So…” Gavin said, once Michael had relaxed significantly. “What’s your… favourite colour, Ray?”

Ray paused to think. “Purple, probably. What’s yours?”

Gavin beamed. “Blue! What’s… your favourite movie?”

Ray snickered. “Shrek.” He answered. Gavin rolled his eyes.

“Be _serious_ Ray!”

Michael laughed. “Trust me, he ain’t kidding. I remember back when Ray would text me entire sections of the script to piss me off.”

“Absolutely daft!” Gavin shook his head, laughing. “So, other than annoy this one.” He jabbed Michael with long, dexterous fingers. “What do you like to do for fun? Before all this, I mean.”

“Well… Michael and I were both gamers.” Ray said.

“Oh really?” Gavin asked, smile growing again. “Ryan and I too.”

Their conversation quietened after that, Ryan and Gavin swapping seats so they could drive again for a few hours, before stopping off by the side of the road to light the portable camp fire and eating the game they had caught that day. It occurred suddenly to Ray how strange it all was- the way they had bonded so quickly and how instantly comfortable they felt eating together, cross legged on the side of the road.

After they ate, a handful of walkers stalked their way over. After a few tosses from Ryan’s knife and an accidentally skilful manoeuvre involving a glass jar and a pistol from Gavin, the tiny mob was laid out dead on the side of the road.

“Ready to go?” Michael asked Ryan.

“Wait. Let’s search the bodies first.” Ryan said, nudging one of them with his toe. “They might be recently turned, still with supplies in their pockets.”

They rifled through the bodies quickly, but by the end of it there was nothing left but a handful of old wallets and a penknife which Ray pocketed on terms of finders-keepers. Michael frowned at their small collection back in the van.

“What good is this shit?” He asked, picking out a few twenty-dollar bills. “All this garbage is good for is keeping a fire going, these days.” He huffed, tossing them out the passenger window in a flurry of green.

“I’ve got a Starbucks loyalty card in mine.” Ryan noted. “And thirty _pesos_? Mexican zombie, niche.”

Ray scoffed. “That’s such a _stereotype_.”

Ryan looked over to him with a teasing smirk, but before he could reply, Gavin was leaning in from the back.

“I’ve got photos in mine.” He said, rifling through a few small squares of paper, dog-eared around the edges and discoloured from lurking in a wallet for God-knows how long. “Weird.” He handed the photos forwards to Ryan, who held them up by the windscreen so they could all see.

Ray looked at the photos. The first was of a man, holding a baby in his arms with an adoring look in his eye. He was looking at the baby as if the kid was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, and suddenly, Ray felt uneasy knowing that the same guy they were staring at was likely laid back behind them on the sidewalk, one of Ryan’s knives briefly embedded in his skull. The other two photos were of other children, possibly the very same baby but significantly older as the quality of the photos grew. Michael frowned and Gavin fell quiet behind them.

“We should… get rid of them.” Ryan said, after a while. “It all feels a little too personal for me.”

“Yeah.” Ray squirmed beside him. “Like… we’re looking into his fucking diary or something. Get rid of them, Ryan.”

Ryan took the photos of the dashboard and folded them tightly. He looked at them with a strange kind of discomfort on his face and the familiar feeling of longing pulled in Ray’s gut as Ryan tossed the photos and they went flying out the window, into the wind.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you thought by leaving kudos and (hopefully) dropping a comment!


	3. April 25th-28th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray and Michael fall in trust with Ryan and Gavin. Ryan and Ray go shooting.

April 25 Th

On the fifth night of travelling, they parked in the back lot of an abandoned supermarket. Ryan said goodnight politely, before slipping out of the driver’s seat and heading into the back with Gavin. It was the same routine as every night- Ryan and Gavin would fall asleep beside each other instantly on the mattress, whilst Michael and Ray would sit up, awake in the front seat until the sun crept over the horizon and they felt safe enough in knowing that nothing was coming after them that wouldn’t be easily fended off by an alert Ryan and a sleepy Gavin.

It astounded Ray, as he watched the pair laid beside each other, how quickly Ryan and Gavin had trusted them. They would snore soundly for hours, whilst Ray and Michael were perched above them. They had every opportunity to stab both of them in their peaceful sleep and take their van and supplies and genius plan on the road without them.

But, for some unknown reason- Ryan and Gavin trusted them, and very quickly, Ray was feeling the same.

“What do you think, about those two?” he asked Michael quietly, as the dash clock ticked over to three AM. “Like…” the parking lot was beyond silent, he could hear his own quiet breaths filling the van. “Do you trust them?” he asked.

Michael looked over to Gavin, and then, briefly, Ryan. “Yeah.” He nodded to Ray. “I guess so. They seem okay. Ryan’s got his shit figured out for sure.” He shifted, turning to lay against Ray comfortably. Ray frowned, it wasn’t five o’clock yet. It certainly wasn’t their bedtime.

“What about Gavin?” he dared to ask. “You two seem to be… getting on well, recently.”

Michael shrugged, eyes already closed. “He’s cool, yeah.” He mumbled. Ray sighed.

“Hey, Michael?” he asked again, unsatisfied with the response. Michael hummed and Ray glared at his beautiful sleeping face. “You don’t… know Gavin, do you? Like… from before we found each other?”

Michael was quiet for such a long time, that Ray had actually started to believe he had fallen asleep. But after a while, he shifted and muttered very quietly, “No.”

“No.” Ray repeated to himself, hours later when the sun came up and Ryan was beginning to stir. “No, my ass.”

“What about your ass?” Ryan mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Ray laughed quietly.

 

 

“Nothing.” He said. “Nothing at all.”

 

 

 

 

April 28 th

 

Michael and Gavin had been out hunting for hours, and Ray was quickly growing tired of sitting silently in the van whilst Ryan marinated jerky and cleaned his weapons whilst whistling the same old circus tune under his breath over and over again.

“You look antsy.” Ryan didn’t look up from his work, but Ray already shifted awkwardly at his acknowledgement. “I am.” He replied. “It feels… weird to just… lay around and not do anything. Haven’t done this for like… two _years_.”

“Hm.” Ray looked over as Ryan sat up on his knees, turning away from his work to look at Ray. “Well. Wanna do something fun?”

Ray choked on the water he was sipping, coughing and spluttering awkwardly as heat rose from his cheeks. Ryan laughed.

“Target practice?” he offered. Wordlessly, Ray agreed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“How!” Ryan demanded petulantly. Ray’s bow was in his tight grip, but every arrow he was shooting sailed completely off target from the vaguely red marks they had spread on the trees with crushed berries. “How are _you_ so good at this?”

“I told you, practice.” Ray shrugged. “Look. You just gotta straighten it out. Don’t let your grip waver, keep the sinew here.” He lifted Ryan’s arm slightly, and his skin was warm to the touch. “Other than that… I don’t know. Just… relax a little. Let it happen.”

At Ray’s nod, Ryan let the arrow go and it hit the tree, a foot or so above the target. Ryan cheered, punching his fist in the air happily and his joy was infectious.

“Awesome! See, once you relaxed you’re a real natural.” Ray smiled as Ryan held his shoulder. “You’ve used a bow before, right?”

Ryan nodded. “Gavin used to have a bow, a while back. When we first met he had been rolling with a group but there was a nasty run in with some walkers. He lost his bow and ended up separated from the group.”

The excitable joy faded and settled into a quiet hum of content, but in the back of Ray’s mind he felt bad. He didn’t know anything about Gavin and his lost bow. Ray could only imagine how hurt he would feel if he lost his bow- the one thing that had stuck with him over the entirety of the outbreak.

“Maybe I’ll take him out shooting next time.” He said quietly. Ryan nodded and the clearing settled into silence.

“You wanna learn how to test for clean waters?” Ryan asked, nodding at the spring that ran alongside them. Ray smiled.

“Sure.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Hey,” Ray said as they walked back to the van side by side, water canteens full and bouncing in their bags. “I know Michael’s still being a little… _stand_ - _offish,_ but you guys are really helping us out. We would’ve fried staying in Austin.”

“No problem.” Ryan shrugged, hands tucked into his jean pockets. “The more of us together the better out chances of survival for… however long it is we need to survive.”

Ray stopped walking completely, watching as Ryan continued ahead.

“How long do you think that will be?” he called. Ryan didn’t stop walking, but Ray watched as his shoulders raised in a vague shrug.

 

 

“Honestly, I don’t know.” He said, turning his head back slightly but not looking at Ray at all. “Sometimes, it’s easier not knowing.”

 

 


	4. May 2nd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael and Ryan find themselves alone together, for the first time.

May 2 nd

 

 

True to his promise, a few days later Ray surprised Gavin by waving his bow vaguely and nodding in the direction of the forest.

“Wanna go shooting?” he offered, when Gavin only tilted his head and frowned in confusion. After that, he perked up like an excitable puppy and scrambled out of the van to grab Ray by the hand and run off in the direction of the woods.

“Be careful!” Michael called after them, sat in the front passenger seat of the van whilst Ryan tinkered with the steering wheel. It was strange, Michael quickly realised, that it was the first time he and Ryan had been left completely alone together.

He wanted to hate the guy. He wanted desperately for Ryan to be horrible and evil and to double cross them so he could scoop Gavin off and they and Ray could run away and survive on their own. However, Ryan didn’t seem to want to follow his plan at all. The guy was irritatingly nice and infuriatingly useful, with all his obscure knowledge and talents.

“Ray’s gonna let Gavin use his bow.” Ryan said suddenly. Michael looked over, dark eyebrows raised on his forehead.

“Really?” he asked. Ryan nodded. “Huh. Ray doesn’t let me fucking _touch_ the thing.”

“Really?” It was Ryan’s turn to look confused. He had clear memories of shooting Ray’s bow days before, but decided that perhaps it would be best if Michael didn’t know that information. The last thing he needed was to give the scavenger more reason to be distrustful of him. “Maybe he’s warming up.” He said vaguely. Michael snorted.

“Please, that bow is Ray’s fucking pride and joy. It’s all he has of his old life and he clings onto it like a kid to a stuffed toy.”

Ryan laid his screwdriver back on the dashboard and rocked back into the driver’s seat, turning to watch Michael with questioning in his eyes. Michael squirmed a little under his gaze, and pressed his back to the passenger window.

“How did he get so good?” Ryan asked. “Whenever I ask him, he shrugs and says _practice_.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Figures. Truth is, Ray was an archer before all this shit even began.”

“What?” Ryan arched a brow. “Like, recreationally?”

Michael shook his head. “Professionally. Dude was something crazy like tenth best in the world of his age at one point, best in the country for sure. He was a prodigy- since he was a kid.”

“I…” Ryan looked out on the open road, towards the forest. “I never knew.” He said.

Michael shrugged. “He doesn’t like talking about it. He was on his way to being in the next Olympics but… then all this shit happened, go figure. Kind of a dream killer.”

“Right.” Ryan nodded, turning back to look at Michael. His pale skin sparkled in the early morning sunlight, light freckles decorating his cheeks and his neck and his angry little frown. “What about you?” he asked.

A strange sort of toothy smirk fell over Michael’s lips. “I was a boxer.” He shrugged. “Family business.”

“I know a little something about obscure family businesses.” Ryan nodded. “I grew up in the circus. My stepfather was an animal trainer.” Ryan paused, awaiting the burst of harsh laughter that he was surely expecting from someone as predictable as Michael. However, he said nothing- just nodded vaguely and watched Ryan with a different kind of shine in his eye. He understood, Ryan quickly saw. Michael understood what it was like to be a performer. “Gavin…” Ryan trailed off, hoping to change the subject. “I don’t even know what Gavin used to do. He doesn’t ever talk about it.”

Michael sighed, shrugging back against the window and looking away from Ryan again. His eyes were caught in the sunlight, but they were completely unreadable as they focused on the open stretch of concrete road.

“Gavin used to work in the media.” Michael explained. “He was one of very few people to be trained to work with these… crazy expensive high speed cameras that do all that slow motion shit you see in movies. That’s what Gav used to do.”

Ryan frowned. “How’d you know that?”

Michael shrugged. “He told me.” came his vague reply, eyes never moving from the road, almost as if he was afraid- that if he looked at Ryan directly than every mysterious secret surrounding he and Gavin together would come to light.

“It… sucks.” Michael said quietly. “I can still fight and you can still throw and Ray can still shoot but… Gavin can’t film. He can’t even take a fucking photo, and it kills him because he feels completely useless.”

Ryan chose to say nothing after that. There was far more to the eye than the tiny hints of information Michael was willing to give him- but Ryan wasn’t a pusher. Michael and Gavin would unravel in their own time, and he was intrigued to see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, let me know what you thought?


	5. May 5th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan, Ray, Michael and Gavin make it to Chicago, and begin their journey to the airport.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though I'd upload the new chapter a day early, cause ExtraLife2016, right??
> 
> You should check out the stream here for endless hi-jinks that will likely dissolve into hardcore mavin and grossly ill-prepared physical challenges! : http://roosterteeth.com/livestream/extra-life-2016
> 
> Also, donate if you can! It's only 3:30pm (Austin time) and they've already raised $250K! Who knows what they'll reach by the end of the stream!!! If you can't donate, that's cool! Just spread the word as best you can so others have the chance and make sure to tune in!

 

May 5 th

 

 

Despite being little more than a two-hour flight from where he grew up, Ray had never once touched the state of Illinois, let alone its honorary capital, Chicago. As they wandered through the neat concrete streets, surrounded by tall, cold skyscrapers Ray felt more at home than he had done for over a year.

“Fucking hell.” Michael said quietly, heading up the back of the group with Gavin not far ahead of him. His eyes were wide as he took in the decrepit buildings, cracked walls of tall homes and schools and blocks, broken fences and faded graffiti. Cars were abandoned on every corner, every road, blocking their entire path to the airport. It was the main reason they had temporarily abandoned the van at the edge of the city, gathering up their valuables and setting off towards the airport on foot. Ryan seemed to know where he was going, leading silently in the front of the pack with bags of supplied knocking around his hips. There wasn’t an infected in sight, thankfully, but that didn’t stop the four of them from walking with care and precision, weapons drawn and ready in their grip.

They had been walking for around two hours when they made it to _Melrose,_ which Ryan said was the nearest major centre to the airport.

“It’s still quite a walk away.” He told them, turning a narrowed corner into a row of abandoned shops. “But it’s getting late. The sooner we find somewhere to rest, the better.”

“What about over there?” Gavin pointed with his pistol towards what appeared to be an old-fashioned diner. Compared to the other buildings on the street, it seemed to be the strongest- front windows still intact and blinking red LED lights of the sign still flashing, dim and flickering sporadically.

“I can’t believe there’s even still power here.” Ray said, “Do you think that means there’s central heating? ‘Cause I’m getting the feeling that once night-time sets in it isn’t gonna feel so summery here.”

“I doubt it.” Ryan sighed, pushing the front door open and stepping into the diner. “But I brought a few blankets from the van. We should make it through the night.”

“Should?” Gavin gulped. Ryan smiled at him.

“It won’t get that cold. If homeless people could survive the streets, I’m sure we can handle one night in an old diner.”

“Lights don’t work for shit.” Michael announced as they stepped inside, his first move to wander over to the wall and flick the light switch up and down. “It’s gonna get dark as fuck in here. Ray, did you bring our lantern?”

“Got it here.” Ray unclipped the small light from the belt loop in his jeans where it had been hanging and rested it on the nearest booth. Ryan walked over then, flicking a match from his back pocket alight with the inside of his mouth before leaning in and lighting the candle inside the glass. Ray found his eyes being drawn to Ryan’s lips, watching them intently as he continued to speak to them all, laying blankets down on the booths and settling their bags in the surrounding booths.

“…this could work, for a day or two.” Ray barely caught the end of his sentence, and only so because Ryan looked him right in the eyes and smiled. “Seems alright, doesn’t it Ray?”

“Uh, yeah.” Ray nodded awkwardly. “Awesome.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Most of the food abandoned in the diner was long since spoiled, but after rooting around in the pantry Ryan had found them some pretty well preserved tinned foods, like tomatoes and hotdogs in water. He’d attempted to heat them up over the stove, but it seemed as if the glowing sign was nothing more than battery operated, because not a single other source of power was running in the whole building.

“I always thought this city was a piece of shit.” Michael said, shoving the abandoned half of his meal away. At least Ryan had made some effort, serving them food up on cracked china plates. They ate together in a circular booth with real cutlery, and for a few short minutes Ray actually felt as if he was living in a world that made sense. They were just a group of friends, hanging out. Eating in a diner. Drinking water in milkshake glasses.

After their meal, they scattered around the small diner. Michael lounged in one of the square booths, stretched out over the long seat whilst Ray sat on top of a table a few booths down, cleaning his arrows and his bow meticulously as Ryan watched from ice-cream bar, playing with a lighter he had found in the pantry along with their supper. It had no gas left but Ryan was content enough rested against the counter with his miniature screwdriver, taking the device apart and sticking it all back together again. Not far from him was Gavin, at the other end of the counter, playing with the cash register.

It wasn’t electric. The diner had seemed to stick to its vintage aesthetic with a fully mechanical silver register, and Gavin was more than delighted to push the emergency cash button over and over again so the empty cash drawer would jut out and the register would ring, creating a loud and shrill echo through the room.

“Gavin! For _fucks_ sake, fucking _stop_!” Michael snapped, after the tenth or so time. Gavin flinched as soon as he raised his voice, backing away from the register immediately as if it was suddenly poison. Ray watched as the slightest flicker of regret shone on Michael’s face, but it was too late. Gavin rounded the counter and slunk off to sit in a booth furthest from them all, right in the corner of the restaurant.

Michael sighed loudly and a few more quiet seconds passed. Nobody spoke. Ryan didn’t even look up from his tinkering, but Ray doubted he had even noticed the squabble. Ryan had a way of loosing himself into things like that.

Before long, Michael was standing up from the booth and followed over to where Gavin was sitting, slipping in the table opposite him. They began talking quietly, too quiet for Ray to eavesdrop. He looked over in an attempt to read their lips, but it was no use. Gavin had his hand slightly over his mouth as he chewed anxiously at his nails and Michael’s back was too him. So instead, Ray allowed his eyes to wander back over to Ryan, and noticed that he was now watching Michael too.

“We’re all tired, and irritable from walking.” Ryan said, setting the lighter down. “We should probably go to sleep.”

Michael didn’t come back from his place at Gavin’s booth as Ray settled into his own. They were in the far corner of the restaurant but Ray still had a somewhat clear view of them both- the apologetic gaze in Michael’s mumble and the quiet acceptance in Gavin’s smile. Ryan had certainly seen it too, as he settled in the plush chair opposite Ray.

“Goodnight, Ray.” Ryan whispered, just as Ray caught sight of Michael, getting up and creeping round to Gavin’s side of the booth, laying them both down in a way that looked surprisingly comfortable, cuddled together underneath a woollen blanket.

It felt wrong, like he was prying or snooping on a very private moment so rather than continuing to watch over the couple enviously, Ray looked back at Ryan, who was sat up in the booth with his back against the wall and his eyes shut tightly. His head was tilted back slightly and his arms were folded across his chest. In his fist, he gripped a pistol. Ray wondered how easy it would be for him to crawl over and settle himself between Ryan’s legs for the night. He was pretty small- he could probably fit.

But that was never going to happen and he knew it. So, with the blanket pulled tightly around himself, Ray scooted his back against the wall and mimicked Ryan’s pose, before slipping his glasses off and folding them neatly on the table.

“Goodnight Ryan.” He whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, Questions, Predictions for future chapters: Leave them all below! I honestly read every single comment and grin like an idiot. I respond to them too, sometimes! I try and respond to all questions as best I can, but if by any chance I miss yours, my asks are always open on tumblr: PAPERSK1N.tumblr.com !!!


	6. May 6th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lies don't last forever. Eventually, cracks turn to shatters.

May 6th

 

 

Ray was awoken by the sound of moaning.

At first, he wondered if Michael and Gavin really had given up their façade of “acquaintances”, and he was ready to sit up and flee the room so his innocent brain didn’t have to be tainted with images of them jerking each other off in the far-side booth. However, when Ray peeled open his eyes to see Gavin, laid alone and Michael nowhere to be seen, he followed the source of the noise to the front door.

“HOARD!” he yelled, scrambling for his glasses and his bow as the crowd of zombies beat at their glass doors. Ryan was suddenly awake opposite him, gathering his knives as Gavin began to stir. Ray scanned the room as the door busted open, but Michael was still nowhere to be seen.

“Gavin! Where’s Michael?” He yelled, one arrow nailing the first zombie to climb its way into the room. Gavin had just sprung to his feet, picking up the large machete that Michael had left behind. “I don’t know.” He yelled back, blade in one hand as he fumbled for his pistol in the other. “You…” his face grew pale as he looked back to the hoard. “You don’t think they…”

“We don’t have time for speculation!” Ryan yelled, one tiny blade sailing through the air and into the forehead of an oncoming zombie. “If we’ve got any chance of finding him, we have to survive. So get off your ass and start shooting!”

Gavin swallowed thickly. “Right.” He nodded, pistol shaking as he aimed it into the hoard. “He’ll be fine.”

“He’s Michael.” Ray drew his bow again as more undead stumbled through the door. “He’s always fine.”

The hoard, although fairly few in number, were more advanced than the zombies Ray had encountered before. Rather than aimlessly shuffling towards their food, stepping over and crushing each other in the process, they seemed evolved enough to climb over the jagged glass of the broken door and windows, shoving each other aside to get closer. Ray and Ryan quickly found themselves shoulder to shoulder as they fought off the increasing number of undead who waded their way towards them. Gavin, not being as quick as them in the key early stages, was trapped in his booth, stood on the table with his back pressed against the cool wall. He had his pistol still firing, but Ray had been counting mentally. Gavin only had three-quarters of a clip last time they’d checked. Soon enough, he’d have to give up firing and start swinging.

“Ray, four o’clock!”

At Ryan’s command, Ray whirled around and shot the zombie that had been less than a foot from him. They were getting faster, which was surprising and worrying. Ray was starting to run out of arrows, and the gun he had in his own back pocket was only good for a few more shots. He scanned the room with narrowed eyes, quickly tallying up the amount of zombies they had left. Thankfully, it hadn’t been a full-on hoard to start with, and had quickly thinned from around twenty to only seven or eight zombies left. However, they’d broken their way far into the building, and Ray found both himself and Ryan getting closer and closer to the wall.

Whilst Ryan was attacking the zombies approaching their sides, Ray eyed the one shuffling at them straight on. His eyes were bright red and tongue black as he snarled, saliva dripping around his mouth. Ray reached behind him for an arrow, but his fingers instead smashed against the wall.

“I’m out of arrows.” He said quietly.

Before he could reach for his gun, a knife sailed into the zombie’s throat and it fell, twitching, to the ground. Ray looked beside him to Ryan, who had barely a few seconds to give him a quick, reassuring smile before taking on the zombie that was at his side, shoving it away before drawing his own machete and slicing its head clean off. Ray could only watch in awe as the next two received the same treatment, Ryan’s biceps straining against his T-shirt and his expression set into a hard frown. He still had his gun. He could’ve helped, but Ryan had him frozen.

“You… saved me.” he panted, once the undead were taken care of. Ryan was panting, leaning against the wall in a moment of relief.

“I heard you say you were out of arrows.” He thudded his fist against his own chest, trying to catch his breath. “You froze. I couldn’t just leave you.”

“I’ve never ran out of arrows before.” Ray shrugged awkwardly, gripping his quiver tightly. He hung his head. “I… froze. Yeah. Sorry.”

“Hey,” Ryan smiled, straightening and resting a hand on Ray’s narrow shoulder. “It’s okay. It happens to the best of us.”

Ray stared up at Ryan then, realising for the first time how completely in awe he was. Ryan was _everything_ an apocalypse needed- scientifically smart and physically fit, handy with weapons and good with strategies. On top of it all, he was caring, he was funny, he was engaging. Ryan was selfless in the way he stopped attacking the zombies gaining on him in order to protect another remember of his team.

Ryan was _marvellous_.

“-Guys!”

Ray was distracted by Gavin’s shout and his eyes flew across the room, bow tightening in his fist subconsciously. However, his feet remained trapped to the floor when he took in the sight of Gavin, pinned by his throat by a snarling zombie. Both Michael’s machete and his gun were on the floor, Gavin scrambling against the zombie’s strength with nothing but his fists as he yelled, pushing his head further back against the wall to avoid the zombies bite.

“Gavin!” Ryan roared, reaching to the ground to yank out a knife from a nearby corpse. But it was too late, the zombie tilted its head back and stretched its mouth impossible wide, rotten teeth almost sparkling. Gavin was done for.

And then a shot rang out.

The zombie went lifeless instantly as it’s skull exploded, slumping to the floor as Gavin’s breath heaved and his gag reflex triggered. He bent over at the rancid undead smell, gagging into he back of his hand before he even had a chance to lock eyes with his saviour.

Ray watched as he did so. Gavin straightened and turned to the doorway, eyes blowing wide and mouth hung open.

“ _Michael_!”

Gavin took off in a sprint towards him, wrapping his arms around Michael tightly and burying his face into the other boy’s neck. “Oh my god, _Michael!_ ” he gushed. “We thought you were _dead_ , boi. What the fuck happened?”

They pulled back from the embrace as Ray and Ryan approached slowly from behind. Once closer to the shattered doorway, Ray could take in Michael’s appearance. He looked exactly the same as he did the last time they saw him, no obvious injuries or discrepancies. Clearly he hadn’t been caught up or swept away in the hoard at all. In one hand he held his still-smoking gun and in the other, something small and boxy.

“What happened to you?” Ryan asked, frowning. “We were attacked, we thought you’d been…” he stopped himself, looking at Ray briefly before glancing down to the floor. “We didn’t know what had happened to you.”

“I woke up this morning before any of you. Things were quiet.” Michael explained. “I took a walk cause… I felt guilty.” He looked to Gavin. “For yelling at you yesterday. Then I found an empty apartment block, so I was searching through some of the rooms. I found this.” He held the small cardboard box up, and Ray squinted, still unable to figure out what could possibly be inside. “I wanted to say sorry.”

Gavin frowned. “What is it?”

Michael tucked his gun into the back of his jeans and walked over to the diner counter. He rested the box on the counter as the rest of them gathered around it, before popping the top and pulling out a small, black polaroid camera.

“It’s got film in it and everything-” he began to explain, handing the camera to Gavin before rooting in the box and producing packets of film, which Ryan began inspection. “I just saw it and I thought… I wanted to say sorry.”

Gavin was hardly listening. He was in complete awe, hands shaking as he examined the camera with a delicate scrutiny, turning it over and over between his hands, holding it up to the light and back down as he peered into every nook and cranny. Ray wasn’t right next to him, but he felt confident enough to swear that Gavin had tears brimming in his eyes.

“Does it work?” Ryan asked. Michael shrugged, and looked back to Gavin.

“Why don’t you try it?” he said.

Gavin fumbled with the buttons until the camera blinked on, popping the back to check the film. Once satisfied, he closed it and tinkered with some of the more intricate settings. Then, he took a few steps backwards, and held the camera up to his eye.

“Stand uh, stand closer together.” He prompted. “Ray, get a little closer to Ryan on the right there.”

They shuffled around on command until Gavin was ready, and a white flash filled the room. The camera sounded a little janky as it whirred to life, probably unused for the past two years, but eventually a neat white square printed out the top. It was fresh, and undeveloped, but Ray could just about make-out their glassy figures.

“That’s fucking awesome.” He said, smiling.

“Thank you, Michael.” Gavin didn’t smile at first, but the look in his eyes was worth a thousand grins. He stared at Michael with a new kind of emotion that Ray had never, ever seen. “Honestly. It’s perfect. I… I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s yours Gav.” Michael reached forwards, resting his hand on Gavin’s shoulder gently. “Honestly. You deserve it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Following the high strung emotions of the morning, Ryan took the executive decision that their location had been more than compromised, and their best bet would be to keep moving, headed towards the airport. He and Ray took the lead, Michael and Gavin hanging ten or so paces behind, chatting quietly between themselves. Ray pretended not to snoop, but he could vaguely make out Michael saying he had been ‘terrified’ when he saw Gavin pinned by the zombie and for a second, he was convinced he was dead.

“Chicago was one of the first cities to get hit.” Ryan distracted him from the ambiguity. “That’s probably why the zombies are a little smarter than the ones down south.”

“I never knew.” Ray kicked the toe of his sneaker through some rubble on the street. “Why here? Why Chicago?”

“Nobody knows.” Ryan shrugged. “Some of the more Brainiac types I ran with near the beginning were convinced there was some kind of signal here but… they never finished looking. I didn’t see the point myself- it wasn’t like we could reverse the deaths of billions of people.”

“I had a friend early on. Andy- Michael knew him. His theory was that it wasn’t worldwide at all. That they told us it was so we wouldn’t go looking but really- across the pond everyone was fine. Wondering what the fuck happened to the USA.”

Ryan considered it for a moment, eyes cast towards the sky. “That’s a hell of a conspiracy theory- but I’ve heard crazier. I guess at this point, anything’s possible.”

“Why though. Why here?” Ray asked. “Why’d this happen to us.”

“Perhaps its karma.” Ryan smiled. “Punishment on the bourgeoisie western world.”

“Maybe it’s God.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You a believer?”

“Not really.” Ray wrinkled his nose. “Always thought it was a load of shit but… I don’t know. Isn’t much left to turn to, is there?”

Ryan only hummed in reply, and they continued their walk in silence. Michael and Gavin caught up, and they formed a line of sorts, each member of their little put-together crew on edge just in case an infected reared its ugly head around the corner.

“Hey.” Gavin said, after an hour of silence. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Ryan asked. Gavin pointed in the direction of a few tall buildings.

“That- look!” he waved his hand. “See it. That light- red and yellow. You don’t think-” he swivelled to turn and face Michael, who bit his lip. “Michael? You don’t think it’s-”

“-I don’t know.” Michael clipped his sentence short and jerked a shrug. “I don’t know what that is, Gav.”

Ray frowned, watching the two. It was on the tip of Gavin’s tongue- whatever he had seen, he’d recognised as some kind of sign- and Michael had seen it too. Michael had recognised it just as quickly as Gavin, but for some reason was doing his best to hide it.

“Let’s go check it out.” Ray said, eyes not leaving Michael for a second. His partner looked right back at him, and guilt flashed across his face. “C’mon. Gav- you lead the way.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The building was further than it looked and by the time they approached the front of what appeared to be an old hotel, night had fallen. Michael had been protesting for the last half an hour that they should stop, find somewhere to crash before the zombies made their way out onto the streets but Gavin was adamant they keep moving. Ray was adamant too- a bitter curiosity over his so-called best friend’s suspicious elusiveness. He wanted to find whatever it was Michael was hiding from- the mystery intrigued him. Clearly it had something to do with Gavin- and it must’ve involved the past, but Michael hadn’t given him enough to piece the picture together. This building- the glowing red and yellow light illuminating the highest window; this was the biggest clue he’d seen so far.

Gavin looked nervous yet excited, shifting from foot to foot before he hopped the few steps up to the door and knocked loudly. He kept looking around, from the door back to the group and then again to the door, like a little kid who wanted to show his parents a drawing.

The door didn’t open, but a hatch inside it slid open. The bottom half of a gruff face could be made out, an impressive dark beard and a shiny silver septum piercing.

“Password?” they asked.

With one last grin to Michael, Gavin leant in.

“Lightish red.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Where is he?”

They’d barely been standing in the Lobby of _Rooster Teeth_ for ten minutes when footsteps could be heard bounding down the stairs, following by a gruff voice. Ray looked up to see a dark-haired man, eyes blue and tired and facial hair wiry, running down the stairs with a toned-looking blonde woman not far behind him. What they were running _to_ became quite apparent.

“Gavin, oh my _God_!” the man said, pulling Gavin into his arms and hugging him tightly.

“Geoff!” Gavin sniffed, and for a second, it almost sounded as if he was _crying_. Ray could only watch stood next to Ryan awkwardly as Gavin pulled away and hugged the woman, who was apparently called Griffon. But his attention wasn’t focused on that for very long.

“ _Michael_?” the man, Geoff, leant around Gavin and his mouth fell open.

Michael walked forwards awkwardly, before being pulled into a tight hug by Geoff. “You little _asshole_ ,” he mumbled. “I thought you were _dead_.”

“I’m not.” Michael mumbled into Geoff’s shoulder. “Gavin- I… we found each other again.”

“Oh, Geoff!” Gavin interrupted the moment, gesturing over to Ray and Ryan who were both as uncomfortable as each other, stuck in the middle of some kind of heart-felt, long-awaited reunion. All Ray had was questions. He didn’t presume he’d be getting many answers. “This is Ryan and Ray! They’re our friends- we’ve travelled all the way from _Austin_!”

“Austin?! How long have you been on the road?!” Griffon asked. Ryan shrugged.

“Couple weeks.” He said. “I’ve got… I had a van. We drove it as far as we could on solar power until we made it to the city.”

“What are you doing in Chicago of all places. Did you know we’d be here?” Geoff asked, looking back to Gavin and Michael. “No way!” Gavin shook his head. “See, Ryan’s a pilot, so we thought we’d fly like… East for the summer and we knew there were planes at O’Hare and… then we were walking and I saw the light… I just… I _knew_ it couldn’t _be_ anyone else.”

“Does anyone wanna explain… like… _anything_?” Ray demanded, but his accusing glare was fixed on Michael, who caught it and looked away.

“Oh, right!” Gavin on the other hand was practically vibrating with excitement, bouncing between the small gathering they had created and relishing in the attention. “This is Geoff and Griffon and _this_ ,” he gestured at the space around them. “Is _Rooster Teeth._ A community of survivors. Probably the biggest running group, like, _anywhere_.”

“How many are you?” Ryan asked. Geoff shrugged.

“About a hundred, at the moment. People come and go, it’s impossible to keep an exact total-”

“A _hundred_?” Ray asked incredulously. “That’s… I didn’t even know there _was_ a hundred people. Period!”

Geoff chuckled. “Well, hate to burst your bubble kid- but there’s more survivors out there than you think. We estimate about twenty-four percent of the population remain uninfected at this point in the outbreak, give or take. And that’s why we started this.” He reached down, taking the woman- _Griffon_ ’s tattooed hand in his. “My wife and I… we knew there needed to be somewhere people could go to be safe. Groups of six or seven work out fine when you’re on the road but… a real base of operations like this- with people who are doctors and people who are fighters and maths geniuses and gamers and cooks and what the fuck ever else we’ve got… we stick together. Keep the human race alive, I guess.”

“I was here when it started.” Gavin added. “Right at the beginning of the outbreak, I… I helped make all this. Michael joined not long after that, right boi?”

“Yeah.” Michael mumbled, still unable to meet Ray’s eyes. “We rolled together for about a year. Then… at our old base, there was a big attack. We got… split up-”

“-We thought you were _dead_ , kid.” Geoff reached out, resting his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you come back?”

“I blacked out, man. For… days. When I came to- I didn’t know where I was. I made it back to base and… everyone was gone.”

The room went silent. Gavin reached over, and his hand crept silently into Michael’s, who held onto it tightly.

“Well, you’re here now.” Griffon smiled. “And you’re family-” she looked over to Ryan and Ray. “-all of you. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, we’ll get you some rooms sorted.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Michael obviously chose to share with Gavin, unable still to look Ray in the eyes or release his hold on Gavin’s hand as the elevator carried the four of them silently up to the fifth floor. Gavin was even uncharacteristically quiet, finally noticing the tense atmosphere.

Michaela and Gavin’s room as 604. Ray and Ryan’s was 612.

“It’s fucking bullshit.” Ray said as soon as the door was closed, tossing his bow down on the nearest bed. “I knew they were hiding something- but this? This is _insane_ \- why wouldn’t Michael want me to know about this fucking army of survivors who are all his best fucking friends? Why would he let us fucking struggle through an entire year, just the two of us when he _knew_ there were people out there who could help us? I just don’t get it.” He pulled his jacket off too, sending that on the bed beside his bow followed by his bag. Ryan sat silently on the other twin bed, resting his arms on his knees, watching Ray flip out.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” Ray asked. “Aren’t you mad? At Gav at least?”

“Yeah, I’m mad.” Ryan shrugged. “But you looked like you needed to vent so I thought I’d let you. I think the whole situation is pretty fucked up but… I’m sure Michael will explain himself in due course.”

“How can you _be_ so calm?” Ray asked, but by Ryan’s calming words alone, he felt more relaxed. He shifted his stuff over to one side, before walking around the bed and sitting on the edge, directly opposite Ryan, who shrugged.

“I don’t know.” He said. “I just like to give people the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. Besides, this place is alright.” He shifted backwards, turning to lay back on the bed with his fingers interlocked over his chest. “And if it turns out all the people are evil Nazi’s plotting to end the world or whatever, we could just run away, you and I.”

“Huh.” Ray couldn’t help himself. He smiled, just at the thought of taking off with Ryan in the middle of the night, headed to the airport just like they had all talked about so many times. “Yeah.” He said. “Maybe we could.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long one! Hope you enjoyed and liked the little twist. More to come as truths are revealed, see you all next week!


	7. May 8th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael reveals the truth. Ray does some thinking as he and Ryan grow closer.

May 8th

 

 

Two days. That’s how long it had been since Ray had uttered a single word to Michael.

Gavin had gone back to his usual self by their first morning, tension rolling off him like water off a duck’s back. He threw himself into his _role_ at Rooster Teeth, introducing them to almost every person that passed whilst sharing out hugs and _glad-your-alive_ well-wishes. Ryan was polite as ever, shaking hands and making small talk. Michael was guilty-looking and quiet whenever Ray’s back wasn’t turned. Ray maintained an indifferent silence that earned him a few strange looks.

“You should talk to him.” Ryan suggested on their second evening, stretched out on top of his bed with his hands tucked behind his head. “I know it’s killing you to not talk to him.”

“Fuck off.” Ray sighed, but it didn’t come out with nearly as much bite as he’d hoped it would. Ryan actually sat up then, swinging his legs around the bed and getting up to sit over on Ray’s bed so the two were side by side.

“Talk to him.” He repeated, nudging Ray gently with his shoulder. “I promise it will make you feel better.”

“And say what?” Ray huffed, turning his head to look at Ryan in his kind, frightening eyes. “ _Hey_ _man_ , _what the fuck?_ Cause that’s all I got at the moment.”

Ryan simply shrugged. “Just say whatever feels natural.” He clasped h hands together thoughtfully. “Keep it simple- ask for the truth! Michael is like your brother, right? I can only imagine he feels even worse than you do right now.”

Ray sighed again, but ultimately he knew that Ryan was right. It was an annoying habit of his, being right about everything all the time. Ray hated how fucking _right_ Ryan was.

“Fine.” He huffed, standing up. “I’ll go. But if I come back with bloodied knuckles, pack a bag cause we’re leaving in a hurry.”

Ryan stood up then too, beside him with a smile. “You’re cute if you don’t think I’ve already got an emergency bag packed to run with.” He patted Ray on the shoulder, and electricity shot up his spine.

“Nerd.” Ray mumbled. Then, surprisingly, Ryan leant forwards and kissed him gently on the forehead. It had barely lasted a second, the brush of chapped lips against his skin, but it was enough to send heat rushing through his entire body, heating up his cheeks and making his hands tremble by his sides. Ryan didn’t say anything, just lifted his hand away afterwards and retreated to his bed where he re-assumed his position flat on his back, hands clasped over his chest and his eyes fixed to the ceiling thoughtfully. Ray didn’t bother trying to stutter a response.

Ryan had literally turned his brain to mush.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Michael and Gavin’s room was only down the corridor, and Ray could hear the two bickering before he even grew close. He resisted the urge to smile fondly as he knocked on the door, Gavin’s shrieking quieting immediately and the click of a pistol’s safety replacing it. Michael opened the door a crack, and when he spotted Ray he tensed immediately, lowering his gun.

“Uh. Ray. Hi.”

“Hi Michael.” Ray nodded. “You got a minute?”

Michael hesitated for a second, and Ray resisted the urge to scoff. His so-called best friend stepped aside and let him walk into the room as he tucked his gun back away and Gavin excused himself awkwardly, suddenly needing to rush off and talk to Geoff about _uh…something-or the other… thing. Yeah. Later_.

Michael remained standing. Ray sat awkwardly on the bed, hands clasped together tightly between his knees.

“Well.” He said. “You’ve got five minutes. Start fucking talking or I walk out of this door and I don’t come back. Ryan too.”

Michael sighed, and the guilt was clear to see as it washed over his freckled face. Ray could see it, but he refused to feel sorry. In his eyes, Michael was a liar. Michael had been lying to him this whole time- and that meant he couldn’t be trusted. Michael walked over to the other facing bed, and sat opposite Ray.

“Look. I don’t want you to be mad-”

“-Too late.”

Michael hung his head. “Ray, man, you gotta believe me when I say I’m sorry, and I never meant to lie to you I just… I just didn’t include specific details about who I’d been running with before we bumped into each other. That’s all, dude, I swear.”

“And Gavin?”

“Gavin’s… well, it’s complicated.” Michael said. “I don’t know how else to describe it. We… _I_ met him not long after the outbreak. I met them all- Geoff, Griffon, everyone. Rooster Teeth was something I’d heard about and then… there they were; you know? They were real, it was like… the first sign of hope. I teamed up with them, and that’s how I got to know Gavin. I was a member.”

“And then what?”

“And then… Gav and I, we… we had a thing.” Michael swallowed thickly. “I lost him. Rooster Teeth got attacked, I took my eye off him for a second and we all got split up. Gavin, I guess, found Ryan. I found you.”

“That’s it?” Ray asked incredulously. Michael nodded.

“That’s _it_ dude. I just… I didn’t say anything because I was trying so hard to forget about Rooster Teeth and about Gavin. The memory was fucking painful and I wanted to start fresh. I thought that Gavin…” he trailed off, and for a second, Ray thought he saw the inkling of a tear in Michael’s eye. “I thought he was _dead_. I was never expecting to see him again- so when you found him and Ryan I… I freaked out. It was overwhelming, being with him again but I’d kept that whole part of my life so distant and tried so hard to forget… I just didn’t want to look like an asshole. I tried to keep it quiet and I was wrong. I was _so_ wrong. Ray, I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you Michael.” Ray sighed, locking eyes with his best friend. “Honestly, I do. It sucks that you kept it from me but I understand why. I can see that you and Gav you… you know, you love him, more than anything.”

“I really do.” Michael nodded, wringing his hands. “I’m so in love with him Ray. Fucking hell- it scares me what I’d do to keep that fucking moron safe. I know we had this plan to just… get on a plane and go and that’s sort of why I tried to avoid this place when Gavin spotted it. I knew that once we got in, it would be near impossible to get back out.”

“It isn’t impossible.” Ray stood up, and Michael followed as he made his way over to the door. “Michael. Us leaving only depends on how much you and Gavin want to stay.”


	8. May 22nd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray does some thinking. Ryan makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be pretty wild. Just saying.

May 22nd

 

 

“Gavin doesn’t want to leave.” Ryan told him.

Ray gritted his teeth as he laid back in the bed. His arms were rested behind his head, bow lent gently at the foot of the bed. He and Ryan had been sitting together in a comfortable silence for the last few minutes, as the sun rose and the clock ticked over to their sixteenth day at Rooster Teeth. In Ray’s eyes, that was fifteen days too many- but he’d been patiently waiting for Michael to make a decision. Michael hadn’t done that.

Ray rolled over to lay on his side. His body felt heavy and tired- because most of his nights had been a continuous, dull hum of _consciousness_. He tossed, he turned. Ryan usually slept in short bursts, twenty minutes, room check. Another forty, room check. Another twenty, and so on so forth. But, over the last few nights as Ray’s insomnia had grown worse, he’d elected to stay awake too. Ryan was considerate like that, and although Ray knew he certainly didn’t deserve the effort, it was nice that Ryan wanted to go to such an extent as to make sure he was okay.

Ray wasn’t stupid. He knew, he had known for the last two weeks that Gavin was home and wouldn’t be leaving it anytime soon. Gavin was similar to a child in his thought process, and most dreams and concepts of leaving and escaping the hell hole that was their lives were picked up and dropped regularly. Getting into a plane at O’Hare and flying off to New York wasn’t even on the windscreen of _Gavin Free_ anymore- he’d returned to his true home, where he was almost certainly going to stay.

The only deciding factor for Ray, had been Michael. Initially, the thought of just leaving without Michael by his side had been incredulous given all they’d been through together. But then, over the last two weeks he’d given thought to their talk and watched the way Michael interacted with Gavin. It was like he watched Gavin with a painful caution- Ray had seen him slip Gavin extra food from his own plate and flinch in ghost pain whenever Gavin so much as stubbed his toe. When groups were allocated to head out on supply runs, Michael would practically shove Gavin out of the way to put his name on the sign-up sheet instead. Since moving back into the Rooster Teeth way of life, Michael had a new mission. His goal wasn’t to get into a plane and fly off to New York either. Michael’s priority was Gavin’s survival.

“I know.” Ray sighed, rolling over onto his side and staring at Ryan through the quiet darkness of the sunrise. “I fucking know Gavin wouldn’t dream of leaving this place. And I also fucking know that Michael isn’t going to leave Gavin. Not in a million fucking years.”

“We can still go.” Ryan offered, and when Ray scoffed he sat up in the bed. “I’m serious Ray.” Ryan reached over to the nightstand and refastened his watch on his wrist. “My plan still remains. I’m leaving this place- tonight, and I’m going to the airport. I’m getting onto a plane, and I’m flying to New York or wherever else I can get to with what fuel is left sitting there. If you want to come, you’re more than welcome to.”

Ray bit the inside of his cheek and slowly, he pulled his knees up to his chest. “I can’t leave him.” He said quietly. Ryan sighed. “I’m sorry Ryan. I can’t leave Michael. We always said we’d stick together and I can’t go back on my word like that. If Michael wants to stay… I’m staying too.”

For a second, Ray actually thought that Ryan was going to smile. That Ryan was going to get up and sit on the side of his bed, rubbing his hair fondly and promising that he too, would stay for Ray’s sake. Who on earth would want to be Michael and Gavin’s third wheel? And, they got along so well- why wouldn’t they stick together? They were the R’n’R Connection. They _worked_.

Ryan didn’t rush over. Ryan didn’t sit on the bed nor rub his hair fondly and promise to stay. Ryan sighed, yet again, before getting up and walking over to the small wardrobe where he kept his duffle bag.

“I’m sorry, Ray.” He said. “I’ve got to leave. Even if it is without you.”

Ryan picked up the duffle bag, and with one last look over at Ray, laid in the bed he stepped out of the room and closed the door tightly behind him. Ray curled tighter in on himself, and for a second, considered getting up and running after him. How long would it really take him to grab his bow and pack what little was left of his supplies, right?

But he didn’t. Ray didn’t move from the bed, because the tiny scrap of guilt still remained in the back of his mind. Michael. It was always going to be Michael.

Quietly, Ray cried.


	9. May 23rd

May 23rd

 

 

“What do you mean, _gone_?” Gavin asked over breakfast. Ray glared- the dark circles under his eyes more than telling as he shoved beans around his plate, not really eating them at all. Gavin was distraught at the news that Ryan had taken off and left without so much as a goodbye, and with a tight hold on Michael’s hand, he started his vigorous questioning. “Why? Without saying goodbye? Is he _mental_ \- going out all alone?! Who’s going to watch his back?!”

“Gav, lay off, okay?” Michael said softly, glancing at Ray with a pathetic pity sparkling in his eyes. “Ray’s obviously upset.”

“Why the fuck would I be upset?” Ray snapped, gripping his spoon a little tighter. “Ryan got sick of waiting. No skin off my fucking nose.”

“Wait?” Gavin frowned, looking between Ray and Michael briefly. “Where you guys not… like… _together?_ ”

“No!” Ray exclaimed, bitter façade slipping as a blush rose on his cheeks. “We weren’t… _no_ ,” Gavin raised an eyebrow.

“Wow.” He shrugged. “I thought you were fucking. Didn’t you think they were fucking Michael?”

Unsurprisingly enough, Michael agreed. Ray glared at them both, and after pushing his plate away, stood up from the table. “Whatever,” he huffed. “Ryan and I weren’t fucking, just for the record. And now he’s gone. End of fucking story.”

“Gavin!”

They were all distracted by Geoff, who came sprinting into the room with a shotgun in his hands. Immediately, the hairs on the back of Ray’s neck stood up. Whatever had Geoff running inside the canteen area, it had to be serious. Panic was swirling in his eyes- and from his strangled shout of Gavin’s name, Ray could only stab in the dark at what else possibly could’ve gone wrong.

“Geoff, what is it?” Both Michael and Gavin stood up immediately, Michael reaching for his pistol before Geoff even had the chance to speak.

“Hoard.” Geoff panted. “A fucking hoard. Thirty of them at least. On the approach.”

“Fuck!” Michael swore. He pulled his gun from his back pocket and checked it for bullets. “most of my supplies are upstairs. You got anything that can spot me, or is there time?”

Almost as if on cue, the sound of sirens rang through the hotel ballroom. Ray flinched at the piercing sound, and around them hundreds of RT employees stood from their tables, and reached for their nearest weapons. This wasn’t a drill- not like the several Geoff had run since they’d arrived. This was real. This was _serious_.

“We’ve got five minutes, tops.” Geoff told him. Michael nodded, and after a breathy kiss to Gavin’s lips, he took off in a run in the direction of the stairs. After a second, and Gavin’s pained shout after him, Ray took of sprinting too.

If he was going to survive this, a gun just wouldn’t do it. He needed his bow.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“On your left!”

Ray whirled around, bow drawn taut. Without a second to blink, he released the arrow and watched with satisfaction as it launched and successfully burrowed itself in the throat of the zombie who had barely been two feet away from him. Then, with the same precision, he sprinted over, combat rolled underneath the bullet that flew above his head, and ripped the arrow back out. He didn’t have the luxury of relying on whatever was left in his quiver. To fight off a hoard of this size, he needed every arrow he could get his hands on.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ray could spot Gavin, firing wildly with a rifle from his position stood up on one of the cafeteria tables. Stood back-to-back with him was Michael, a pistol in each hand a blood trickling down his leg from where someone had likely grazed him with their own defending shot. However, he didn’t once wince, shooting with accuracy at the zombie who attempted to swing down from the chandelier and take out Gavin with its rotting, razor-sharp teeth.

It would’ve been a picture to watch, if he hadn’t been right in the middle of it. The group worked together like clockwork- as soon as a zombie got too close to you, someone else was already there to take it out. People chose to stick together in smaller sub-groups or pairs, like Michael and Gavin or Geoff and Griffon. Rooster Teeth protected their home and their own. Selfish values had no room.

Ray chose to go it alone.

It was almost as if he’d been transported back to a time when zombies were just a thing in video games and cable shows. His focus was, as always on the target in front of him. He straightened his back, locked his feet in place, drew his bow. He never missed.

“Ray! Look out!”

Ray whirled around just in time to see a knife, embed itself into the skull of the zombie who was advancing at his back. The creature was impossible close- it was a miracle that he hadn’t leant forwards and bitten before the unknown attacker destroyed his chances. His skin, pale and faintly green ran almost white as blood poured from the back of his head, and slowly, he collapsed to the ground.

Ray was frozen. His bow was still drawn, but the grip he held on his fresh arrow wavered as he locked eyes with a man, tall, _built_ , covered in a leather jacket and a dark balaclava. He too, was still. Before Ray could speak, the man pulled the mask off, and soft brown hair tumbled around his neck. His blue eyes shone- and for a second, Ray could’ve sworn he saw tears. Maybe that was just the way his own vision was blurring as emotion choked his throat.

“Ryan?” he whispered.

“Behind you!” Ryan shouted back, fresh knife drawn above his head. Like an aeroplane on autopilot he spun again and took out the nearest zombie. After that, his back straightened again and he drew another arrow. However, when Ray squinted his eyes and stared around him, he realised that once again, the cafeteria was only filled with non-infected.

“Ray!” The next sensation was Gavin, bounding into him and hugging him tightly. “God, we thought you were a goner! That zombie was breathing down your neck, how didn’t you see it?!” he gushed. Ray staggered slightly on his feet, but a heavy hand patted on his shoulder and stabilised him. Gavin stepped away, and Ray turned to see Ryan stood behind him.

“Rye!” he breathed, lurching forwards to hug Ryan tightly. Thankfully, Ryan hugged him back, so tightly that Ray felt his entire body be lifted an inch or two of the ground, and in return Ray tucked his face into the crook of Ryan’s neck and did his best not to start crying.

“Oh God, I thought I’d lost you,” Ryan was saying, breathing heavily into his ear. “I thought I was too late.”

“You fucking came back.” Ray leant away as he felt his feet touch the land again. Then, he curled his fist and pounded Ryan’s left bicep as hard as he could. Ryan barely recoiled, instead smiling. He knew that he deserved it. “You fucking came back and that’s all that matters, you asshole.”

“I felt awful. Leaving things the way there were.” Ryan explained, somewhat sheepishly. “I shouldn’t’ve… I should’ve waited for you to make a real decision. Given you time.”

“Ryan’s back!” Ray turned, moment interrupted by Michael’s piercing voice. He had wondered why Michael hadn’t followed Gavin from the moment the fighting stopped, but it became clear he had been pre-occupied, getting patched up by Caleb from the white bandage wrapped around his calf. He hobbled over quickly as he could, all but falling into Gavin’s waiting arms before moving over to hug Ray tightly. “God, Ray- thank _fuck_ you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.” Ray nodded, breathless from how tightly Michael had held him. He then looked behind himself. “Ryan had my back.”

Ryan blushed, and the two shared a brief look. Then, he cleared his throat and locked eyes again with Michael. “Is that it for the hoard?” Michael nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it here sooner. I could’ve stopped-”

“It’s fine, Ryan.” Michael cut him off, extending a hand which Ryan shook firmly. “Like Ray said, you came back. That’s all that matters.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

The fight wasn’t without its losses.

Gavin was crying quietly into Michael’s shoulder as yet another body of one of his former friends- no, former _family,_ was carried out of the room by others. Michael had his arm around Gavin tightly, and was rubbing small comforting circles into his shoulder with his thumb. Being the outsiders, Ryan and Ray hung back a little, eager not to intrude on the group mourning as stranger after stranger tried their best to hold it together, paying their respects. Ray had overhead Geoff saying something about a mass grave being dug outside and felt nothing.

It was weird, how things like that didn’t shock him anymore.

“Honestly,” Geoff said to them as they lifted heavy bags over their shoulders and prepared to leave the run-down hotel. “You can stay. You’re more than welcome to stay and be part of our family.”

“I’m sorry.” Ryan said with a sad smile. “But I-” he stopped, and looked beside him to Ray, who was slinging his quiver over his back, balanced on top of his backpack. “ _We_ ,” Ryan corrected himself, “just can’t stay. There’s planes over at O’Hare with enough fuel to take us to _New York._ Maybe in the summer or something we’ll head back over, check on y’all. Until then- this is goodbye.” He held a hand out, which Geoff took and shook firmly. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“You’re a good man, Haywood.” He said. “Stay safe out there. Look after Ray.”

“Fuck-” before anyone could say anything else, Michael had pushed his way through and pulled Ray into a suffocating hug. Ray didn’t even snap at him to be careful about his bow- just accepted the hug and returned it graciously, tucking his face into Michael’s neck. “Ray, I’m sorry. I’m gonna miss you so much dude.”

“You have to stay, it’s fine.” Ray nodded, and for once, he felt like he was telling the truth. “You’ve got Gavin to look out for- I understand. I’ll be fine.” He pulled away, and took a step or two backwards until his arm was brushing Ryan’s. “I’ve got Rye-bread to look out for me now.”

“I promise, I’ll die keeping him safe.” Ryan said. Ray wanted to laugh to ease the tension, but the look in Ryan’s eyes as he stared into Michael’s was deadly serious. Then, the two shook hands. It was all remarkably civilized.

Gavin was next, jumping into Ryan’s arms and muttering something incomprehensible into his ear before stepping away and hugging Ray, a little less viciously. “Oh Ray, I am gonna miss you.” He mumbled quietly. “Don’t worry about Michael. I’ll keep an eye him.”

“Likewise with Ryan.”

“Oh don’t worry. I’m sure you will.” Gavin said, stepping back with a knowing smirk. Ray frowned, confused, but when he turned to look at Ryan, he noticed that his face was a bright, blushing red. Whatever Gavin had said to him- it must’ve made quite the impact.

“Griffon’s got a jeep ready for you outside. We don’t tend to use the vehicles that much, and walking all the way to the airport would be too risky. Don’t know what might be left of that hoard outside.” Geoff said, slipping a set of car key’s into Ryan’s hand and closing his fist tightly. “Stay safe out there.”

Ryan looked over to Ray, who did his best to smile. “You ready?” he asked.

Ray nodded.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She was small.

A rickety little bi-plane that was probably half Ryan’s age, faded red and white from where the body hadn’t been repainted. But, the wheels were sturdy, the tank was full, and there was just enough space for two passengers and some luggage. She was small, but she would do.

Ryan’s hands shook as he settled into the cockpit. Ray figured it had been a long time since he’d been inside an aeroplane, and reached out to touch his shoulder reassuringly. “Hey, relax.” He said, and he felt Ryan calm under his touch. “You’ll do fine. I trust you.”

“I know.” Ryan nodded, readjusting himself in the seat and reaching forwards to flick a few switches and turn the engine on. Gently, the little plane hummed to life and hundreds of tiny lights lit up around them, illuminating the worried hold Ryan had on his lip with his top front teeth. Then, after settling his hands on the steering wheel firmly, he turned and looked at Ray, basked in the glowing red of the lights.

“Hey, before we go,” Ryan started, eyes wide and expression anxious. “I just… I- before we go… I know we haven’t known each other all that long but- but I just need you to know-”

“-Dude, spit it out.”

“I love you.”

Ray froze. Ryan turned his head and focused on the large windshield. “I just needed you to know that.” He said, after a few long seconds of silence. Ray nodded awkwardly, and slipped his seatbelt on.

“Okay.” He said. Ryan nodded, and pushed the throttle. The plane rolled forwards, picked up speed as it chased the tarmac of the runway and then, with an awful wheezing launched itself into the air. Ray didn’t look at Ryan. He kept his eyes focused out the window, looking down at the tall hotel building with the glowing red and yellow sign.

They were leaving, but that was okay. Ryan loved him, and that was okay too.

They would be okay.

 

* * *

 

 

 

The trip took around two and a half hours, and with the plane only been small they had to make a stop off briefly in Ohio to fuel up. Ray did his best to take the tension away by cracking jokes about whatever trivial thoughts passed his mind, and Ryan laughed, but didn’t have much else to add. Ray couldn’t blame him. He’d dropped a pretty large bomb dotted in tiny hearts and it was still slowly sinking in. That, and flying a plane without autopilot looked fucking complicated. The last thing Ray wanted to do was distract the dude that was keeping them in the air.

However, once they were landed, Ray didn’t have the self-control to hold back anymore. Two and a half hours was plenty enough time to let Ryan’s confession sink in, and all he’d been thinking about in the last third of their trip was how nice Ryan’s arms felt wrapped around him.

Ryan climbed out of the plane first, hopping down from the door. Once he was safely on the ground he reached back with an arm, and grabbed Ray’s hand. Ray hopped down somewhat gracefully, and then instead of letting go, he pulled Ryan harshly towards him. Ryan was somewhat startled at first, stumbling into Ray’s waiting arms. However, when Ray’s hand slipped from his and instead moved up to wrap around the back of his neck, he melted into the embrace.

“We made it!” Ray yelled excitedly, and the grin that spread across Ryan’s face made his fingertips tingle. “We fucking made it!” he repeated, as Ryan’s strong, warm arms wrapped around his back and lifted him off his feet. Ray used his sudden increase in height to his advantage, and leant forwards, pressing his lips against Ryan’s.

Ryan was startled at first, stumbling back slightly, but he didn’t resist the kiss. After a few seconds, he was completely involved, gripping Ray tightly around the waist and lifting him up further until Ray’s legs wrapped around his hips.

“I love you too.” Ray mumbled into the kiss. “I fucking love you, so much.”

 

 

“I thought you didn’t- when you didn’t say anything, I thought-”

“-Shut up,” Ray interrupted Ryan’s babbling with another kiss, and ran his hands through his thick brown hair lovingly. “Just shut up. I’m an asshole. And I love you.”

“Let’s go.” Ryan hugged him once more, tightly, before setting Ray back down on his feet. However, they weren’t out of contact for long, as Ray felt Ryan’s big hand shyly creep into his. “We’ll find a high rise, start a new life.”

“R’n’R Connection against the fucking world, right?” Ray asked. Ryan beamed at him.

“Of course.” His hand squeezed Ray’s gently. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you next week for the final chapter! Hope u enjoyed some long awaited raywood.


	10. September 24th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This feels like an episode of Doctor Who. Because I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry.

September 24th

 

 

 

“If I had to do it all again, exactly the same- I would. It’d be worth it, just to meet you.”

Ray looked over at Ryan and grinned as they approached the jet engine. It had been their first discovery, months ago when they had landed in New York. It was small for a jet plane, and had probably only been owned for private use, but it was the only plane there with enough fuel inside it. Together, they had visited the airport every few weeks or so and siphoned all the drips and drabs of gas they could salvage from the other abandoned planes in the surrounding hangers. Finally, after months, she was ready to fly.

The winter was starting to set in early. Ryan had some theories about the lack of human population drastically altering the earth’s atmosphere, and therefore speeding up their seasonal cycle. Already, thin sheets of almost-snow had begun to fall over the New York atmosphere.

They wouldn’t survive on their own. The two of them worked well as a team, but after a while they realised being alone together lead to a lot more fooling around than hunting and their food numbers were plummeting.

Ray missed their apartment already as they geared up and loaded the plane for the trip back to Chicago. They’d already been able to contact the Rooster Teeth base via radio, and reconnecting with Michael, Gavin and Geoff had been incredible. Michael and Gavin were still going strong, even though the latter was suffering from a particularly nasty break in his wrist after playing on a skateboard he found in an alley. Michael didn’t seem to mind taking care of him, to nobody’s surprise.

“Can’t wait to see you!” Had been the last thing they heard before the connection dropped, from Gavin. Ray and Ryan had grinned at each other. They were excited to return to the people they loved so dearly once again.

“You ready for this?” Ryan asked as he settled into the cockpit. Neither of them had bothered investigating the back yet, and the little luggage they had was tossed in the hold. However, the plane was black and luxurious- so Ray had been bragging about the awesome nap he was going to take in the plush leather seats once they got into the air.

In reality, he knew he’d end up spending the whole trip slumped in the co-pilots chair next to Ryan, trying desperately not to touch anything. He just enjoyed his boyfriend’s company far more than his own, which was hardly surprising.

Ray hadn’t had many relationships before the outbreak, but out of what he had experienced, nothing had given him the emotional intensity just _being_ near Ryan could. He wondered, almost nightly, if that was simply a result of their forced proximity due to very extenuating circumstances, or if Ryan really just was his soulmate. He hoped for the latter, feared for the former.

What would things have been like if the outbreak hadn’t happened? Ray was a New York Native, but Ryan hailed from Georgia. Thousands of miles stretched between their homes, and sure- they both liked video games- but aside from that did they have enough in common for any kind of natural meeting to be likely?

Ryan warned him not to dwell on it too much, as it would only drive them both insane. They didn’t have time for what-if’s. They were far too busy trying to survive.

“We’re stable.” Ryan announced when the plane stopped shaking and set at a level pace in the air. He reached up and flicked a few switches. “You can get up and walk around if you want. Investigate the main body of the plane.”

“Your stewardesses got snacks?” Ray asked teasingly as he stood up from the seat. Ryan laughed at him.

“Here on Haywood Airlines, we’ve got a delightful selection of dust, jerky and uncooked strips of zombie flesh. All complimentary, of course.”

“Gourmet!” Ray laughed, before opening the door to the cockpit and stepping into the body of the plane. Ryan went into pilot mode then, and Ray felt relaxed as he heard the clicking of switches being thrown and levers being pulled as they taxied down the runway and prepared for take-off.

“You might wanna take a seat,” Ryan called from the cockpit. “I’m gonna take off now, and I’d be really annoyed if you fell and broke your neck.”

Ray laughed, before slipping into a plush leather seat and buckling the seat belt. “Don’t worry, I’m safe and secure.” He teased.

Ray leant back into the seat and closed his eyes as he felt the plane jut forwards and wheeze its way into take-off. It was fairly bumpy, but that was only to be expected. It had been months, years even since the planes wheels had lifted off the ground. Despite all the upkeep they’d tried to do, there was still no guarantee the thing would even be able to lift itself into the air save short of a miracle.

Ryan had ways of making things work.

He’d propped the door open with an abandoned airline trolley as they cruised at thirty seven thousand feet or so. Ray had abandoned the seatbelt, but stayed in the leather chair with his hands behind his head as he fell in and out of a peaceful, dreamless sleep. It was funny, how the only place he could sleep without needed to clutch a gun in his hand was on an aeroplane thousands of feet in the air.

“Hey,” he was halfway through mumbling hypotheticals in a very Gavin-like fashion to Ryan, eyes shut dreamily as he attempted to pass the time. Ryan had been quiet so far, but occasionally he would hum a response. “What if, like, you could see the colour blue but it looked like it was red, and to everyone else-”

Ray’s voice was cut off by a pained shout. He bolted upright, scrambling for his gun and launched himself to his feet.

“Ray!” Ryan yelled loudly as the plane suddenly swerved, the entire body rotating sideways. Ray felt himself flying through the air, before hitting the ground and tumbling across to the other side of the aircraft. Then, the plane dramatically spun again, and he was forced to the other side, landing flat on-top of his bow. It snapped with a sickening crunch, and the sound alone made Ray’s heart break.

But he didn’t have time to mourn his bow. _Ryan_ was screaming.

“What’s going on?” Ray yelled, struggling to his feet and pulling himself through to the cockpit as the plane stuttered and coughed through the air.

“Infected!” Ryan yelled back, and Ray felt his blood run cold. They were so high up- how could one have even made it inside? Unless, and the thought dawned on him far too late, it had been there from the beginning, lying, dormant and waiting. They hadn’t checked the entire aircraft before they left. They hadn’t even considered needing too.

Ray didn’t have time to dwell on maybes. He sprinted into the cockpit with his gun raised and fired without thought of consequence, without consideration for the thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment that kept them in the air nor the giant windscreen behind them that would rip both he and Ryan out into the atmosphere if it so much as cracked.

Thankfully, despite the fear shaking his hands he nailed the zombie between the eyes and it fell, dead, into the co-pilots pit. Relieved, Ray slunk back against the cockpit door and let out a long sigh.

 “Jesus Christ, that was _close_.” He rested a hand over his chest, where his heart was thumping loudly. “Rye, you good?”

Ryan didn’t reply. Ray opened his eyes.

“Ryan?” He stood up, off the door. Ryan was sat in the pilots chair with his back to Ray. He was hunched over slightly, cradling his arm in his lap. Ray took a step closer. “Rye?” he asked again, softer. Ryan turned and looked at him with a pained, saddened look.

“I-I got bit.”

With just those words, Ray felt his entire life crash around him. Suddenly, everything hit at once. His bow, snapped and useless despite the years of service it had given him. Their stupid luxury plane, the only one they hadn’t bothered checking for waiting zombies. _His_ Ryan, who’d stuck by him through so much and made him feel well and truly _loved_ , bitten.

“Do it.” Ryan then said, and it took Ray a few seconds to get what he meant. His eyes were fixated on the gun in Ray’s hand. He gestured to his arm, oozing red blood with the dregs of black saliva mixed in. “Do it. Please. I don’t want to turn.”

Ray shook his head, and the gun hung limply in his hands. “Rye- no- I can’t-”

“-You _have_ to.” Ryan gritted his teeth, clutching the arm tightly. Ray couldn’t even begin to imagine how much it hurt- but he’d seen people bitten before. Once, when running with Michael, they’d come across a freshly-bitten man  laid in the woods. He was screaming, louder than Ray thought humans _could_ scream. He was in complete agony. “Do it, Ray. Please, for me.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Tears flew from Ray’s eyes and down his face. “Ryan, _no_ \- I can’t _do_ this without you.”

“Yes you _can_.” Sweat was already breaking out on Ryan’s forehead. His breaths were growing shorter. Within the next few minutes, he would either turn or be dead. Ray knew there wasn’t any other way. “Oh God. Ray. You’re so beautiful.” Ryan’s eyes were screwed tightly shut, but he prised them open, looking over at Ray for what was likely the last ever time. “You were always so beautiful to me.”

“Stop it!” Ray cried, rushing forwards, but a powerful hand reached up and pushed him back.

“Kill me!” Ryan yelled.

“No!” Ray yelled back, but his arm rose anyway. The gun shook violently. His finger hovered around the trigger.

“I love you.” Ryan wheezed, and black ooze dribbled from his mouth. Ray’s grit his teeth, and slowly, brought his arm to aim the gun.

“Goodbye.” He whispered, before pulling the trigger.

The bullet didn’t get Ryan between the eyes. That would’ve probably been a quick and painful death, usually Ray’s trademark when he handled infected. He didn’t hit him in the neck either, where he’d likely bleed out within seconds. He didn’t even aim for the heart- no matter how poetic it probably would’ve been.

Ray didn’t hit Ryan at all.

Instead, the bullet sailed through the front window of the plane and the entire thing fractured, before shattering, freezing atmospheric air filling the room. Ray fell forwards as the plane did, pushing the joystick as far as he could as Ryan turned behind him, leaning over to sniff at the skin of his neck. Ray didn’t even bother knocking him away.

With the last breath he had, the joystick locked forwards. The plane dipped vertically, and threw them both forwards, tumbling through the broken windscreen.

They were both dead before they hit the water. At the Roosterteeth base, Gavin watched out the window as a plane crashed over the city and tumbled into The Chicago River.

“You don’t think-” he turned to look at Michael, who’s arms were folded tightly across his chest. “It can’t- it couldn’t-”

Michael didn’t say anything. Gavin kept babbling, kept mumbling half-formed sentences and denials and speculations, but he didn’t listen. He couldn’t hear him at all.

Instead of _talking_ , he simply reached forwards and pulled Gavin into his arms. Gavin hugged him back, painfully tight, and after a few seconds, sobs racked his body. Michael didn’t cry, just hugged him tighter, one hand coming up to rub at his hair.

Michael had always known that he would do everything in his power to ensure that Gavin survived. This only reinforced the idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope u enjoyed the (tragic) ending to this fic! Fun fact, there was a solid few months from when I brainstormed the idea for this fic and when I started writing it, and when I read over my notes I shocked myself at the ending. I don't know why I decided to make it so dark. But, oh well, a little angst is good for the soul.
> 
> Thanks to all of u who read along, commented, gave kudos. I love you all so much. And, if this has left you reeling and demanding more, you can check out the rest of my AO3 which I promise has plenty of happy endings!

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, Comments, Predictions- conspiracies! All are welcome.


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